MUMBAI, May 2: Electricity will be cut to parts of Mumbai, including top industrial companies and shopping malls, for four hours a day to save power, a state minister announced on Monday. Parts of southern Mumbai, which the state government wants to develop as a new Shanghai, will be plunged into darkness between 6pm and 10pm every day for the next two months. “The power cut in the city was implemented from yesterday (Sunday) partially, but will be effective strictly from today (Monday) for four hours every day in May and June,” said Maharashtra state energy minister Dilip Walse-Patil.

He said the cut would affect commercial zones, especially south and central parts of the city that house some of the top industrial companies and new shopping malls. The glittering Queen’s Necklace marine drive in southern Mumbai, a big attraction for tourists which is normally lit by towering neon signs, is one of the areas affected. “The dazzling billboards in these areas will not get power during this time in these two months,” Mr Patil said.

The minister said the power cut in the city and also other parts of the state are the result of a 3,700 megawatt electricity shortfall at peak demand in the country’s most industrialized state. “This is not an overnight development as we have been facing this power problem for the last 10 years,” Mr Patil added.

Nearly 300 activists from the Shiv Sena attacked the state electricity board office in the neighbouring city of Pune, 180kms south of Mumbai, in protest at the cuts, damaging its interior.

“No one was injured, but the protest was against lack of regular power supply in the city,” said a police official. The Maharashtra state’s power situation has worsened over the years after the shutdown in 2002 of two major power plants built by the collapsed US giant Enron, the largest foreign investment project ever in India.

The 2.9 billion-dollar, 2,184-megawatt plant has been shut since May 2001 when Enron closed it after the facility’s lone client, the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, fell behind in payments amid a dispute over rates.

Another plant of similar size was mothballed before being completed.

ENRON REVIVAL: A senior official said the stalled project would be revived within six months.

A series of meetings between Indian and overseas lenders had failed to break a deadlock over reviving the project, but a top MSEB official said on Monday that a solution was now emerging.

“In the next six months the Enron project will be revived. This is a state cabinet decision,” MSEB chief Jayant Kavle told reporters.

“Discussions are on with the central government, domestic lenders like the Industrial Development Bank of India and officials of other power companies in India to revive the project.” —AFP